I slapped D.’s salami between two slices of K.’s bread, K.’s cupcake and orange in my bag, lunch was an amalgam of yesterday’s birthday picnic and when I bolted it all at my desk in a post-refdesk hunger haze, I felt love, great great love, lucky lucky.

I reheated chili from storm night dinner, dished a bowl up for me and one for K., O. had already eaten his fill of edamame, would have pronounced the chili too spicy anyway. The battery tunnel was just a few blocks away but we were lit up with electricity and with internet, like nothing even happened except an awful lot of time indoors.

I waited too long to eat, that’s what happened, I was working with L. on the back end of the new system, just trying to show him some of the decisions we’ll need to make at the Saturday meeting I can’t attend, next thing I knew it was 2:30 and I didn’t even wait to get both my legs swung over the right side of the bench to devour my sandwich, followed up with a cupcake because I was still hungry.

I walked over to the market expecting an as-advertised Top Chef-style teen cook-off but instead there was only a man using a turntable to play the saddest songs I’ve ever heard in bright daylight, I grabbed a chicken skewer and sat down and remembered my first time eating that particular chicken skewer, last fall between an ill-advised trip with D. to one of the OWS marches and an accounting class that asked me to teach them about accounting databases like I know about accounting or accounting databases (I knew enough in time, like you do). Good dinner then, good lunch now. But it’s all different and who knows what this fall will bring, they’re razing the market for condos. Change, man. Play me a song about how sad and hard it is. Then I got a cupcake, marshmallow frosting with peanuts in the middle, plenty to love in the present tense.

I brought my lunch from home but you know what fuck it let’s go outside and get a sandwich or something this whole enterprise is questionable. S. came with me and we hit the storage containers, I really can’t believe how the market has taken off since last spring, I got a sandwich and she got a kale salad. It was so hot out there, they got rid of the tent so there we were under the blazing sun I bet I got a sunburn. I miss the tent. I miss a lot of things. I wanted a soft serv bad, but the luxe frozen yogurt place isn’t open yet. So I got a cupcake instead, coconut which is my go-to comfort flavor, cut it in half and promptly dropped it frosting side down on the filthy wooden bench. Oh for days like this.

Norming session! All kidding aside, I actually find these things totally useful. I mean, what do I know about aligning goals, objectives, and measures? Is a rubric-based evaluation of a capstone project a direct or indirect measure? Do any of those words I just typed have actual meaning? Will there be a pasta salad with the wrap platter? Cookies? Brownies? A cupcake plate? What does confetti-flavor taste like?